Page 40 of A Fate Everlasting

I turned, feet crunching over gravel as I headed back toward the gates. I was being dramatic. Every famous person I’d ever met was a little like this, obsessed with image, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t something real behind the facade. Besides, IneededHugo. His presence felt like a lifeline. He was a piece of home.

“Wait.” Hugo caught up to me, circling the inside of his wrist as if it ached, then whispered almost to himself, “Feels like something yanks me whenever you’re out of sight.” He laughed it off unsteadily, reaching for my shoulder. “Let me see you through the gates.”

I let him walk me the rest of the way in silence, the Thread still humming faintly beneath my skin.

He rubbed at his temple, breaking the quiet, then dragged a hand through his hair. “Sorry. That wasn’t… very smooth, was it?” he said with a breathy half-laugh, avoiding my eyes. “It’s just—I like you, Arabella. A lot.”

Cheesy.But for once, he didn’t sound rehearsed. He let his confidence crack, just slightly, like he was worried about how he’d come off.

I felt something stir, a pull toward him. I could’ve told him then, about how afraid I was, about my score, the Rift, the feeling that everything was slipping out of control. But the words stayed lodged in my throat.

I liked it better when we pretended all of this was a good thing.

18

The wet cobblestone shimmered in the lambent light, the atmosphere still as death. We had been gone since late lunch. Though it was only early evening, the campus lay cloaked in a near-total darkness, as if the sun had never truly risen here.

I checked my slate. I missed my first official sparring session, but my score wasn’t bleeding any more than earlier.

Mist curled low over the path, thick as smoke, swallowing the black stone cloister. I walked alone, my heels clicking against the wet pavement. My fingers brushed the chain at my throat. My necklace had gone ice cold, nearly burning against my throat. I froze, the hair on the back of my neck standing on edge, like something had noticed me. I squinted.

A figure stood near Seraphim Tower, just beyond the steps. A girl who looked no older than twelve. She was barely visible through the mist, the edges of her dark collegiate blurred by the fog. Evermore was a college. It didn’t have students that young.

The girl tilted her head, playfully. “You’re not supposed to have that.” She giggled, her voice pitching an octave as shebegan to sing. “Up, up, never high. Down, down, never low. Nowhere left for her to go!”

Her voice wasn’t loud, but it cut straight through me as I edged toward the staircase. “What? Who? Who are you?”

“A necklace like that isn’t allowed here,” the girl intoned, her lips twisting into a wide smile. “It’s a Lumen.”

The air grew colder. There was a flicker of movement, a shadow barely there, the soft rustle of fabric, the glint of pale, vacant eyes. Then she was close, and her fingers twitched toward the pendant.

I jerked backward. “What’s a Lumen?”

“The necklace, silly.” The young girl drifted closer, the smile stretching too wide across her face.

I felt the Thread tingling against my skull. I didn’t need a warning, this time. I stumbled back, tripping up the steps of Seraphim Tower. The torchlight guttered out completely. The girl’s eyes, so gray and bottomless, locked onto mine as I clambered, my palms raw against the stone. She continued, her voice lilting.“She was never meant to Ascend. She was never meant to Fall. She was never meant to be at all.”

I struggled to my feet, racing up the steps, my heartbeat jagged. The warm glow of the common room was just ahead. When I reached it, I turned back.

The girl was gone. I pressed my hand over the pendant, my heart still sprinting. The common room flickered back to life, but I couldn’t shake her voice. I stood there, unmoving, like if I stayed still long enough, this all might explain itself. It didn’t. Eventually, I climbed the stairs on aching legs, the chant still looping in my head, as if the Thread itself had changed its song.

I kept hearing her voice.“She was never meant to Ascend. She was never meant to Fall. She was never meant to be at all.”

I knew what she was talking about. The Fall, the moment inthe Rift where you choose to Ascend or Descend. But that last line…

Only with the door locked behind me and the world sealed out, did I let myself relax. The words stayed with me, curling in my skull and sinking into my bones.

She was never meant to Ascend. She was never meant to fall. She was never meant to be…at all.

I tore my uniform off and shoved my slate against the mattress, watching the numbers blink back at me in mockery.

-21

Still there. Still unexceptional. Still a death sentence. No amount of philanthropy, no act of goodness, no perfectly constructed day of charm and romance had been enough. I had tried. I had appealed to every higher power I knew of, even the saints everyone kept talking about here. I’d given the Crucible a chance to save me, and it had denied me.

I sank onto the bed, pressing my palms to my forehead. It was hopeless, and I knew now that I no longer had a choice. If I stayed here, I would die anyway. Verrine would drag me to the chapel and conduct a graduation. I’d have to face the Rift, whatever that truly meant. All I understood was that it would likely kill me.

Maybe that would be alright. Maybe there would be peace in the finality of it. But what if my mother was somehow in the After? She attended Evermore. I had no way of knowing if she participated in the Rift, not yet, but there it was.

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